Wednesday, April 18, 2012

A few notes on this piece from Canadian Lawyer Magazine on the party's human rights platform. One thing jumped right out at me:

First, the Wildrose states that it would repeal s. 3 of the AHRA. This section
currently prohibits the publication or display of any statement, notice, sign,
symbol, etc. that either indicates discrimination or is likely to expose to
hatred or contempt a person or a class of persons protected under the AHRA
(subject to a couple of caveats, including the guarantee in s. 3(2) that
“Nothing in this section shall be deemed to interfere with the free expression
of opinion on any subject”). The Wildrose says that the revised legislation
“will maintain the Criminal Code standard of banning speech that advocates for
acts of violence or genocide against any individual or identifiable group.”
Presumably, this change is in response to the “attacks against freedom of
speech” alleged by the Wildrose.

There are a few issues with this
proposal. Although the Wildrose refers to the repeal of s. 3 in its entirety,
its proposal to replace it with a different standard for hate speech makes it
unclear whether it plans to repeal only the hate speech portion of s. 3 (s.
3(1)(b)), or also the prohibition on discriminatory publications (s. 3(1)(a)).
If it repeals the latter prohibition, that would leave a gap in the legislation
that would fail to cover publications that are discriminatory but do not reach
the level of promoting hatred.

Now, while we might argue about the limits to free speech all day and all night, I don't think any of us want to allow folks to post "No Dogs Or Irish" signs outside their restaurants. But that would be the effect of WildRose's proposed changes.

3 comments:

And of course the WildRose make the same mistake as do all the anti-human rights advocates who insist that the federal hate laws only speak to violence and genocide.

Uh uh, either they have not read the law or perhaps can't read, either way s318 and 319 make it clear that promoting hatred against an identifiable group is an indictable offense punishable with up to 2 years in prison.